2.
„Beginning in June, we’re asking all
employees with work-from-home
arrangements to work in Yahoo!
ofﬁces.“
Marissa Mayer
President &
CEO of Yahoo!
Photo-credit: http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/jdlasica/

3.
„Remote work is on a rapid ascent, and
not just among hot tech companies like
Github, Automattic, or thousands of
others. [...] Worse than simply being late
to that party is to try to turn back the
clock and bait’n’switch your existing
workforce.“
David H. Hansson
Ruby on Rails creator
Partner at 37 Signals
Photo-credit: http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/jesper/

4.
The ideal setting
•
One big ofﬁce, no commute and
travel
Everybody loves to work from
9–5
•
•
Trust all around
•
•
The best people available on
the planet
•
•
•
Highly creative environment
•
Productive for all with right
amount of meetings
Highly passionate with a
common culture
Open, honest and direct
communication
Shared vision, clear goal and
few management

7.
Some choose the ofﬁce
•
They don’t trust their employees
•
They want to stay in control and want to keep an eye on everybody
•
It is a company policy, whether it makes sense or not
•
They want to save money

8.
The agile history
•
Created in an ofﬁce context
•
Work with the existing people of the
company / team
Agile
•
Remote work was always “alien”
•
Most agile people don’t want to work
remote

15.
37Signals
•
36 employees around the world.
13 have desks at the HQ in
Chicago.
40h work week. Distributed
around the clock.
Use screensharing and
screencast
•
Weekly discussion thread: “What
have you been working on”.
•
•
Ruby on Rails inventor. Product
company: Web collaboration
software
•
•
•
Ofﬁce are interruption factories
and remote work is almost Zenlike
•
Meetings are a rare treat
Company get together
•
Customer support is staffed
during ofﬁce hours
•
Four hours overlap for
collaboration and team feeling

23.
Personal lessons learned
•
Technology still sucks
(for certain tasks)
Don’t forget to call it a day
•
Know how you work best
•
•
•
Brainstorming sessions don’t
work well via Skype
•
Face-to-face is different than
for non-remote teams
Get out of the House
•
Eliminate distractions
•
Work in a productive space
•
Use collaboration tools

24.
Conclusion
•
Remote work is a viable option
•
Remote teams can be equally good / efﬁcient / effective
as co-located teams - or even better
•
“Do, or do not” - mixed settings suck
Is remote work the preferred option for new companies?